Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked a court to allow her office to defend the state’s existing ban on gay marriage. The ban is being challenged in two ongoing lawsuits.
Attorney General Bondi’s office filed motions to intervene in the lawsuits that were filed by gay couples in Miami-Dade and Monroe County circuit courts. Both lawsuits did not name the state as a defendant.
Allen Winsor, the state's solicitor general, states in the motions that Florida has a legitimate interest in intervening in the case since it is a challenge to the 2008 constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage.
Bondi is already defending the state in a lawsuit filed in a north Florida federal court. That legal challenge maintains the state is discriminating against gay couples by not recognizing same-sex marriages performed in states where they are legal.
